[Federal Register Volume 74, Number 91 (Wednesday, May 13, 2009)]
[Notices]
[Pages 22557-22558]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E9-11128]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[60Day-09-0607]


Proposed Data Collections Submitted for Public Comment and 
Recommendations

    In compliance with the requirement of Section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the 
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 for opportunity for public comment on 
proposed data collection projects, the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention (CDC) will publish periodic summaries of proposed projects. 
To request more information on the proposed projects or to obtain a 
copy of the data collection plans and instruments, call 404-639-5960 or 
send comments to Maryam I. Daneshvar, CDC Acting Reports Clearance 
Officer, 1600 Clifton Road, MS-D74, Atlanta, GA 30333 or send an e-mail 
to [email protected].
    Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed collection of 
information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of 
the agency, including whether the information shall have practical 
utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the 
proposed collection of information; (c) ways to enhance the quality, 
utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and (d) ways 
to minimize the burden of the collection of information on respondents, 
including through the use of automated collection techniques or other 
forms of information technology. Written comments should be received 
within 60 days of this notice.

Proposed Project

    The National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) OMB 
0920-0607--Revision--National Center for Injury Prevention and Control 
(NCIPC), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Background and Brief Description

    Violence is an important public health problem. In the United 
States, homicide and suicide are the second and third leading causes of 
death, respectively, in the 1-34 year old age group. Unfortunately, 
public health agencies do not know much more about the problem than the 
numbers and the sex, race, and age of the victims, all information 
obtainable from the standard death certificate. Death certificates, 
however, carry no information about key facts necessary for prevention 
such as the relationship of the victim and suspect and the 
circumstances of the deaths, thereby making it impossible to discern 
anything but the gross contours of the problem. Furthermore, death 
certificates are typically available 20 months after the completion of 
a single calendar year. Official publications of national violent death 
rates, e.g. those in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, rarely use 
data that is less than two years old. Public health interventions aimed 
at a moving target last seen two years ago may well miss the mark.
    Local and Federal criminal justice agencies such as the Federal 
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) provide slightly more information about 
homicides, but they do not routinely collect standardized data about 
suicides, which are in fact much more common than homicides. The 
FBI[acute]s Supplemental Homicide Report (SHRs) does collect basic 
information about the victim-suspect relationship and circumstances 
related to the homicide. SHRs do not link violent deaths that are part 
of one incident such as homicide-suicides. It also is a voluntary 
system in which some 10-20 percent of police departments nationwide do 
not participate. The FBI[acute]s National Incident Based Reporting 
System (NIBRS) provides slightly more information than SHRs, but it 
covers less of the country than SHRs. NIBRS also only provides data 
regarding homicides. Also, the Bureau of Justice Statistics Reports 
does not use data that is less than two years old.
    CDC therefore proposes to continue a state-based surveillance 
system for violent deaths that will provide more detailed and timely 
information. It taps into the case records held by medical examiners/
coroners, police, and crime labs. Data is collected centrally by each 
state in the system, stripped of identifiers, and then sent to the CDC. 
Information is collected from these records about the characteristics 
of the victims and suspects, the circumstances of the deaths, and the 
weapons involved. States use standardized data elements and software 
designed by CDC. Ultimately, this information will guide states in 
designing programs that reduce multiple forms of violence.
    Neither victim families nor suspects are contacted to collect this 
information. It all comes from existing records and is collected by 
state health department staff or their subcontractors. Health 
departments incur an average of 2.5 hours per death in identifying the 
deaths from death certificates, contacting the police and medical 
examiners to get copies of or to view the relevant records, abstracting 
all the records, various data processing tasks, various administrative 
tasks, data utilization, training, communications, etc.
    This revision is a request to allow 10 new state health departments 
to be added to the currently funded 17, if funding becomes available. 
This may bring the total to 27 by the year 2012.

[[Page 22558]]

Violent deaths include all homicides, suicides, legal interventions, 
deaths from undetermined causes, and unintentional firearm deaths. The 
average state will experience approximately 1,000 such deaths each 
year.
    There is no cost to respondents to participate other than their 
time.

                                        Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
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                                                                  Number of     Average burden/
                 Respondents                     Number of        responses/     response  (in     Total burden
                                                respondents       respondent         hours)         (in hours)
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State Health Departments....................              27            1,000              2.5           67,500
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    Dated: May 6, 2009.
Maryam I. Daneshvar,
Acting Reports Clearance Officer, Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention.
[FR Doc. E9-11128 Filed 5-12-09; 8:45 am]
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